Burning Rain
by MagicLastsForever
Summary: Hey guys this is just going to be a two-shot where Ron and Hermione arrive in Australia to bring her parents back to England.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey Guys and Girls so this is my first fanfic- hope you like it- something i've being slowly putting together. It was going to originally be a one-shot but due to a painful case of writers block, couldn't finish it off quite yet. Please bear with me, i'll hopefully have the second part up in a week. **

**Also i couldn't help myself and put a quote from the Big Bang Theory in, absolutely love Sheldon and the gang and it fit in with the moment anyway i'll stop nattering away. :)**

**AN: I of course don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters, the credit must of course go to our amazing Queen Rowling.**

Burning Rain

A loud crack echoed across the still countryside as two figures appeared jet black against the bright orange glow of sunrise. They turned, inspecting the area around them, brushed off any lingering dust from their cloaks and began to walk towards the small dilapidated shack a short distance away.

"I'm not sure if this is such a good idea anymore Ron, what if something goes wrong. Worse still, what if the memory charms affected their cognition? I don't want them to end up like Lockhart did."

The second figure snorted in derision and slung his arm over the girl's shoulder. "Mione, theres no bloody way that that could have happened. I mean honestly your parents were intelligent, and genuine, two characteristics that that scatterbrained moron Lockhart did not have in any way, shape or form, and besides Lockhart has made a full recovery," muttered the red head with a disgusted look on his face. "If that idiot can make a full recovery, I'm damn sure your parents will be fine."

"But what if something goes wrong?"

"Mione, if I was the one that had done the spell in the first place, or if I was the one removing the spell I'd be plenty worried believe me, but you have to remember you were the brightest witch in our year for a reason. Look, if you need extra reassurance just think about the quality of the protections you put on our campsites during the horcrux hunt. If I couldn't find you and Harry, knowing exactly where you were, courtesy of the deluminator of course, nobody could have found you, and it is because of that that I know that your parents will be fine when you get around to removing the charm."

"Okay. I'll take your word for it, but if anything goes wrong I maintain the right to say 'I informed you thusly.' Do you really think this could be the place? I mean I know this shack is what people perceive most Australians of living in, but still I would have thought my parents would have moved to Sydney, Brisbane or even Hobart, not to a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory."

"It's not that remote per say."

"Ron look around. There's nothing around for miles, just orange dust, camels and cattle. If this isn't remote then what is?"

"Point proven, however, this is Australia right, of course there's going to be no sign of greenery around. I mean the whole country is a barren wasteland."

"No it isn't Ronald! Honestly, don't you ever read? Besides the poem by Dorothy McKellar sums it up in one line, let alone the remainder of the poem, 'of droughts and flooding rains.'"

"Flooding Rains? Ha! Yeah right I could even do a rain dance and not a drop of rain would fall. Watch." Ron then proceeded to dance around twirling his hands in the air, feet pounding along the dry land as he leaped and bounded across the short distance left to reach the shack, "Come on nature I dare you to show me your worst!" And it was with this final act of defiance that Ron stopped short rubbing his forehead. "What the bloody hell was that?"

"Honestly I don't know Ronald, maybe a bird flew over?" Hermione replied attempting to keep a straight face, "stop being paranoid. You probably imagined it. OUCH. What the hell?" Hermione exclaimed while rubbing the back of her hand.

"See I told you! Something's not right."

"There will be a simple explanation, but now is not the time. Let's get this over and done with," Hermione sighed as she stood in front of the door to the shack, and it was with a worried expression that she lifted her arm to knock on the door.

After two knocks, the door swung open …


	2. Chapter 2

When the door swung open to reveal Kingsley Shacklebolt, Hermione immediately knew something was wrong. "Sir?" she questioned, "May I ask what it is you are doing here?"

"I was travelling to meet with the Australian minister for magic, and decided to check in on your parents situation. I found this on the fridge," Kingsley stated as he handed over a receipt for two, one-way plane tickets to Sydney.

"But they were here, why would they go to Sydney all of a sudden now?"

"Sorry Hermione, I have about as much information as you do in that respect, but if we apparate now, we can meet them as they disembark from the plane. That is if you still want to find them?"

"Yes of course we still want to find them. That is if that's what you think is best Ron?" she asked as she glanced at the figure standing beside her, "If not we can leave it for a few years and try again."

"Why on earth would we wait, when we know exactly when and where they will be in the next half hour. We might not get another chance like this again, ever!" Ron exclaimed, "Bloody hell, Mione why would we not take this chance?"

"Well minister, I think you have your answer," Hermione smiled at Shacklebolt, 'I think the decision has being made for the two of us." At these words, Kingsley walked forward, took hold of both Ron and Hermione's arms and turned on the spot.

The next time the two teenagers opened their eyes, they were standing in a storage cupboard for one of the many stores littered around the airport. "Right if you two head towards the arrivals area, they should be here very soon. I meanwhile have to meet with my associate, and as such I leave the rest of this venture in your capable hands." Kingsley said as he turned towards the exit. "and Miss Granger keep me posted about their recovery will you?"

"Of course minister, and thank you," Hermione said as she turned to move to the arrivals section of the airport, "Come on Ron, time to fix this once and for all." The two began to move quickly towards the terminals, only to find that the way they had chosen to go was shut off for routine maintenance. "Sorry Mione, looks like we have to go another way."

"Honestly Ronald are you a wizard or not?" Hermione replied snappishly, "I'd say a simple disillusionment charm would be handy in this situation wouldn't it? Unless you'd rather waste more time in meaningless walking around when we can just cut through this way? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have considered putting up any magical barriers of any shape or form, unless you're going to suggest it's a band of wizards conducting the repairs using muggle means?"

"Mione calm down and take a chill pill gees, anyone would think a guy can't make one simple mistake!" Ron exclaimed, "I'm sorry that I wasn't thinking logically at the current point in time!"

Once they had navigated their way through the renovations, Ron and Hermione emerged on the other side, in the arrivals area to find Hermione's parents standing in the middle of the floor space, craning their necks, as if they were searching for someone or something. It was with the emergence of the teenagers that the Grangers stopped looking around, and began to walk towards them, calling "Hermione, our beautiful, beautiful girl, why on Earth did you request to meet us here of all places? Why not at home. Unless… you don't mean to get married to this charming young man in this abysmal place do you?"

Hermione meanwhile was standing dead still, mouth agape as she attempted to take in the knowledge that her parents were no longer under the influence of the memory charm, barely registering Ron's sudden denial of any marriage at this point in time. When she finally regained control over her speech and gross motor movements, it was to hug her parents and say "You know who I am?"

"Of course we do darling," replied her father, "however we were admittedly astounded when that lovely lady from the ministry came to speak to us, only for us to suddenly realise we were in the Northern Territory of all places! How we came to be there we have no idea, we discussed it the entire flight here."

"What did this lady look like dad?"

"Well she had blonde hair and was wearing green robes, and she had the most awful looking quill in her mouth when she first walked through the door. To be honest that is the only thing I can remember from the last 4 years. The last thing I can remember is sitting in our lounge room and then POOF! We were suddenly in Australia. One of your spells didn't go wrong did it, dearest?"

"No dad, it didn't surprisingly enough. Did the lady say anything to you at all?"

"No she just came in, said she was from the ministry and handed us the plane tickets, told us to get packed and to wait for you here. Although she did say that she expects you are even now and that she should be able to resume her writing in peace without the little mudblooded menace coming after her. Do you happen to know what this means?"

"Yes of course, but it's nothing overly important. Nothing that can't wait until I see her next anyway, she was just making sure an old debt between us was settled. Now, have you got all your things or do you still have luggage to come?"

"No darling, this is it." Her mother replied, "where to now?"

"Back home, to England I do believe. Now if you'll take a hold of my arm mum, and dad, you take hold of Ron's, I think we should go home the quickest way possible. However I should warn you that this will undoubtedly make you exhausted for about a week, considering you are muggles and also the sheer distance we will be travelling. But we will only do this if you're comfortable with apparating."

"Well no time like the present," her father stated while taking Ron's arm, "and you young man," he said talking directly to Ron, "somehow I think you and I will need to have a conversation in the foreseeable future. Don't you?" Ron just nodded mutely to this, and turned on the spot, stopping any further conversation in its tracks.

A week later, Ron and Hermione were seated at the dining table at the Burrow, listening to the WWN (Wizarding Wireless Network) when an announcement came across. "Well folks strangely enough the phenomenon occurring in Australia is as of yet still ongoing. With me I have an expert in weather magic and I will hand over to him to explain what's going on, Professor Stake, what's your take on this?"

"Well Marty, this phenomenon, being dubbed as the week of Burning Rain, is simply the result when a particularly piece of complex magic is conducted, or sometimes when a piece of complex magic is reversed. This is due to the fact that the energy required to conduct this particular form of magic cannot be drawn from the wizard alone. Further, this phenomenon does not always appear as burning rain, as such but in any way shape or form. I have personally deduced that this boiling rain occurred simply due to the timely arrival of the monsoon season, which rather than altering the presence of these torrential rains, merely mimicked the heat found in the earth in the desert, and replicated this in the form of rain. After speaking with locals though, I've also found out that it is rather common for rain to appear to be 'burning' in the dry, arid regions, merely because of the heat and humidity, and as such, this phenomenon, is only really a phenomenon to those of us here overseas. Although the locals did admit that the rain to even them felt like spots of boiling lava, though I'm not sure that is a particularly apt term."

"See," Hermione said to Ron, "simple explanation. Pure and simple."

"I wonder why Skeeter did it though?"

"Who knows Ron, she may have fond some particularly juicy information on us or Harry, and wants to write about it guilt-free. I'm more than positive we'll soon find out though."

It was one month later that Hermione opened the Daily Prophet to find a funeral notice, for none other than Rita Skeeter. Reading the article Hermione discovered that before her untimely death, Rita had in fact wrote a tell all autobiography, in which she detailed her entire life, including a chapter devoted to the memory of her parents, whom she had cast a memory charm upon in the first wizarding war against Voldemort. Intrigued by this mentioning in the article, Hermione flooed to Diagon Alley and walked into Flourish and Blotts, purchasing a copy of Skeeter's latest book. Opening the book, Hermione found the dedication page:

"To my family and friends who I left behind all those years ago in the pursuit of my dreams, you will never remember me, and never will, sadly I was rather good at memory charms, and to Hermione Granger, who in forcing me to see the error in my ways made my re-evaluate my wrongdoings. I hope that she finds happiness with her parents again, and hope she understands why I couldn't allow her to suffer through a fate similar to the one I constructed for myself. "

**This is so overdue guys, I am so sorry. Since I know you're not particularly interested in my excuses I'll just tell you that I've been extremely sick, and it's taken me a long time to get back on my feet. I know this isn't all that great, but I couldn't leave it unfinished. I hope that you even partially enjoyed it. **


End file.
